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Three up, three down | NL West is winning, knuckleheads are bruising

Ace Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers could get a favorable draw in the playoffs if they win their fifth consecutive NL West title.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
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A look at the trending topics in MLB:

THREE UP

NL West: If the National League playoffs had started Saturday, the invitations would have read like this: “Got a winning record? You’re in!” In the 15-team league, five teams are above .500: the Washington Nationals in the NL East, the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central and the Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies in the NL West. The Nationals might win the NL East by 25 games, but the Dodgers might end up with a better October draw if they win the NL West. The Nats would play the wild-card winner; the Dodgers the winners of the persistently mediocre NL Central. The Chicago Cubs? As Yogi Berra would have put it, it might be getting late early for them.

Rays up: Tampa Bay leads the major leagues in home runs, and good luck guessing who is hitting them. Evan Longoria? Not among the Rays’ top four. Brad Miller, who hit 30 last year? He has two this year. The top four: first baseman Logan Morrison, outfielder and dark-horse MVP candidate Corey Dickerson, outfielder Steven Souza Jr. and shortstop Tim Beckham. History has not been kind to the Rays. Souza was their great return in the three-way trade that sent Trea Turner to the Nationals and Wil Myers to the San Diego Padres. Beckham was the first overall pick of the 2008 draft, four picks ahead of Buster Posey.

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Miguel Sano: The list of Latin American bonus babies is littered with failed prospects (remember Joel Guzman?), not terribly surprising when most of those players sign at 16. In 2009, the Minnesota Twins threw a then-record $3.15 million at Sano, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic. Eight years later — at a still-young 24 — he’s the third baseman and biggest bat for the most surprising first-place team in the American League. Sano ranks in the AL top 10 in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs and runs batted in. The Cleveland Indians still look like the better team — the Twins’ starting pitcher in Anaheim on Friday had a 7.85 ERA — but this is progress after Minnesota lost 103 games last season.

THREE DOWN

Knucklehead of the week: Not sure whether the unwritten rules include a statute of limitations, but three years seems an awfully long time to carry a grudge against a hitter admiring his home run. Nonetheless, San Francisco Giants reliever Hunter Strickland plunked Bryce Harper, a theater of feel-good retaliation that triggered a bench-clearing brawl in which the Giants’ Mike Morse collided with a teammate, suffered a concussion and went on the disabled list. Posey did not try to prevent Harper from charging the mound. Strickland was suspended six games, so he’ll miss two or three innings — laughably light but in line with precedent; an arbitrator might cite precedent in overturning a longer suspension. It’s past time for the league and players’ union to agree on proper, tougher discipline for throwing a 98-mph fastball at another human being out of spite.

Sinking ship: Strickland isn’t San Francisco’s only problem. The win-now Giants are fighting the tanking Padres for last place. The Giants’ hot-prospect answer to Cody Bellinger, infielder Christian Arroyo, is at .192. They have scored the fewest runs in the NL. Their four veteran starters — injured Madison Bumgarner excepted – all are below league average. Key players under 26? None. And, as noted by Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News, each of the Giants’ minor league teams is in last place. Dodgers fans should not gloat; those three World Series championship flags fly forever.

Zero heroes: With MLB on a record pace for home runs, three players with a qualifying number of at-bats have yet to hit one. The two active players with the Gordon surname — second baseman Dee Gordon of the Miami Marlins and outfielder Alex Gordon of the Kansas City Royals — are homerless. So is Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar. Kansas City has scored the fewest runs in the majors. After the Royals won the 2015 World Series, they re-signed Alex Gordon for $72 million; he’s hit .207 since. They owe him $20 million next year and $20 million in 2017, when he will be 35 — and his no-trade rights kick in this month.

SERIES OF THE WEEK

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Chicago White Sox at Tampa Bay

Tuesday through Thursday at Tropicana Field

By this point in the season, contending teams know whether they need to trade for a starting pitcher. Most do, but they usually have to wait for rival teams to declare themselves as sellers. Here’s the wrinkle: in the American League, no team is more than six games out of a playoff spot. Yet the early seller often gets the best return, because the buyer gets the pitcher in the middle of June instead of the end of July, and that could mean eight extra starts. The results of this series could help propel the losing team toward selling, and the intriguing starters who could be available include Chicago’s Jose Quintana (5.60 ERA), Derek Holland (3.43) and Miguel Gonzalez (4.43) and Tampa Bay’s Chris Archer (3.74), Alex Cobb (3.67) and Jake Odorizzi (3.53). Closers could be had too: Chicago’s David Robertson (eight saves, 2.29) and Tampa Bay’s Alex Colome (15 saves, 2.05).

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

Follow Bill Shaikin on Twitter @BillShaikin

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